Samyang announces 12mm 1:2.0 NCS CS wideangle for mirrorless cameras

Samyang has announced a wideangle prime designed specifically for mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, the 12mm F2.0 NCS CS. With manual focus and aperture control, it will offer an 18mm equivalent angle of view on cameras with APS-C sensors (19mm equiv on Canon EOS M), and 24mm equivalent on Micro Four Thirds. It uses nanocrystal coating to minimise flare and ghosting, and will be available in Canon M, Fujifilm X, Samsung NX, Sony E, and Micro Four Thirds mounts. Pricing and availability are still to be confirmed.

New Samyang 12mm 1:2.0 NCS CS

March 21st 2014 - Samyang have announced the release of a new, wide-angle 12mm NCS CS lens designed for mirrorless APS-C cameras.

The new Samyang 12 mm 1:2.0 NCS CS offers photographers an affordable, wide angle lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. The lens has been designed for cameras fitted with a high resolution sensor. Samyang Optics has accustomed its clients to great quality optics offered at affordable prices and this is also the case with the 12 mm 1:2.0 NCS CS lens which provides technical parameters and potential that can easily compete with the best wide-angle prime and zoom lenses available on the market.

The new Samyang 12 mm gives a wide angle of view amounting to 98.9 degrees and rectilinear image mapping function. Owing to a large aperture range of f/2.0, the lens offers a high image quality even in poor lightning conditions. Optical construction of the lens comprises 12 elements divided into 10 groups, these components include one aspherical lens (ASP) and one hybrid aspherical lens (H-ASP). There are also three lenses made of ED glass with extremely low dispersion factor. Technologically, the 12 mm NCS CS lens is the most advanced Samyang lens to date and features nanocrystal anti-reflective coating. Benefits of using the nanocrystal cover include much better light transmission, higher resistance to reflections and higher contrast, which adds to the optical resolution of the lens.

The Samyang 12mm 1:2.0 NCS CS is the perfect lens for landscape photography and can be useful in interior and architecture photography or astrophotography. The product comes with a removable lens hood and 67 mm filter mount. It is light weight: weighing only 245 g and is compact in size.

I passed on a $197 new Canon-M (with 22mm prime) because I thought it was dead dead dead dead.

I was thinking of using it for close ups when I have my 55-250 on my T2i at soccer. (Scott Kelby recommends 2 bodies for sports versus a do everything zoom) but I was like, stop throwing money at dead platforms (also a K-01 owner, the cost of the EoS-m was significantly less than getting a 22mm F2 equivalent lens for the K-01)......

No, EOS M is definitely not a dead platform. It's just that Canon would rather sell lots of DSLRs right now. But they certainly haven't killed off EOS M. I think even Canon realizes that mirrorless is here to stay. So it would be extremely foolish for them to kill off EOS M. And they certainly wouldn't kill it, only to design an entirely different mirrorless system in the future. That'd be a total waste. Like I said, mirrorless is here to stay. It ain't going away. So basically, EOS M is Canon's mirrorless platform for the future. Besides, EOS M is doing quite well in Asia. Which is probably why Canon is mainly concentrating on those markets for EOS M, at least for now.

The EOS M is doing quite well in Asia only after Canon cut the pricing from 800 dolars straight down to 300-400. It was actually such a crushing defeat that nobody was buying the EOS M over m4/3 or Sony cameras, that Canon just had to try to dump their whole stock ASAP. Which was a real shame, for people had high hopes for the industry gaint, and the EOS M lenses were actually very decent. Guess Sony is set to rule the mirrorless sector for now.

Why am I confused on this matter? Ok, it's 12mm. 12mm is 12mm. BUt how does a 12mm offer the same angle of view (98.9 degrees per above), irregardless of the sensor's crop factor (eg. M43 vs. APSC, etc?)

Well, because it's the same (12mm) lens. There's a difference between angle of view (what the lens sees) and angle of coverage (what the film/sensor sees). The lens captures the same information regardless of sensor size, (heck, even without a camera attached) but sensor size does determine what amount of that information is captured. That's how I understand it anyway - please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're not wrong. That's why 12mm gives 12mm coverage on full-frame sensors, but only allows the equivalent of 18mm on APS-C and 24mm on MFT. The 18 and 24 are the full-frame equivalents of the crop factor imposed by the smaller sensor, which can only "see" a portion of the circle thrown toward the sensor by a 12mm angle of view.

a 12mm lens provides a maximum angle of view with the whole designed image circle, if it's 28.4mm diameter (for Nikon-Sony APS-C), the angle of view will be near 100 degrees or a cone of about 7350 square degrees.

anyone can crop or cut out a field of view from that 7350 square degrees. it can be like a box, an oval, a heart, or a cloud shaped frame as you want.

a good analogy may be a cone shaped radar beam, lights emitted/reflected by subjects within the cone can enter the lens and arrive at sensor which is often "a cropper."

contrary to many may think, the focal length is not a photographic concept. angle of view is (in degree or solid degree).

It's a "word" only in the sense that it's frequently used by ignorant people in an effort to sound intelligent. The the prefix "irr" and the suffix "less" both connote the same thing. Despite the fact of common usage it is in fact non-sensical. Therefore it's not exactly a word any more than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is. That "word" appeared for a brief time in the Oxford dictionary, but it's still not an actual word.

Irregardless, look up the definition of word (which has probably appeared in the Oxford dictionary for quite a while), and you'll find that it's basically a written or spoken sound or combination of sounds that has meaning. Everyone, including you I suspect, understood the meaning, making it a word.

It's a bastardization of the English language. It doesn't matter that it's made it into the wikitionary or an online "dictionary". The truth of the matter is that it's nonsense "word". Anyone who speaks proper English doesn't use it.

No point in arguing it. If you want to speak like an ignoramus then by all means do so. Ain't nobody nowehere's gonna stop youse.

Looks like an interesting lens. Some of the posts below are amazing. It was announced today, not one has been sold and no-one has seen an image from it. Surely critics and potential buyers alike should wait until we see what the lens's IQ and characteristics look like before passing judgement?

You could be right, Rod, but I've used borrowed Rokinon lenses before and found them to be quite sharp and contrasty. Reviews say the same. Perhaps Samyang/Rokinon can put their money into glass instead of focus motors and anti-shake devices. In some cases, simpler is just fine, as it's less expensive and lighter in weight. Generally speaking, the subjects usually portrayed by super-wide lenses aren't moving very fast :).

They do make at least one crap lens (or maybe all made for Tmount) Samyang 650-1300mm MC IF f/8-16 and the 500&800mm mirror lens but all the DSLR mount lenses are very good and the best value on the market.

@Mssimo .... those are more toys than lenses...If you compare a remote control toy car with a real car.... it's kind of crap... but if you just want to play with it, it's really fun... same in the case of lenses you mentioned...

I don't like saying this but yabokkie has got a point here.Losing it's true ultra-wide potential kinda ruins it. It's just better on the larger sensor mirror less bodies. The 10mm would be great though.

Not necessarily, while it may be a bit much for casual stills photography if it has good sharpness I could see it being popular with videographers, especially on cameras like the BMCC where it would be 28mm equiv while presumably having much better edge to edge consistency due to cropping.

At last! I'm getting in line. I really want a 10 or 12mm lens, but I've put off buying another two-pound zoom that takes up half your camera bag. I was, however, considering the Fuji X 10-24, but at $1000 vs $400 for the Samyang, the latter is a no-brainer. Samyang lenses are excellent optically, and who needs autofocus at 12mm?

You're right, of course, but what I meant is (and didn't include) is that most subjects shot with a 12mm lens aren't usually moving very much. Hence one has time to manually focus. And yes, even at f/8 a focus tweak before pushing the button would be most advantageous :).

qweryasdf: A hard infinity stop is bad. It means that in some conditions (manufacturing tolerances happen to match unfortunately, using the lens in cold temperature, etc) the lens couldn't be focusing to infinity at all.

I'v had the misfortune of being able to test a friend's Tokina zoom lens that had a hard infinity stop. The lens couldn't be focused to infinity at all in temperatures below 5°C, not with AF, and not with MF. The hard stop kicked in at 5-10 meters. At -20°C the lens was ridiculously far from getting to infinity.

In these days where Live View can be used to check for the "infinity of today's weather", there is no real need for a hard infinity stop.

Actually, from a gross oversight, he proves his point... but not quite. While yes, you *can* count on a super-wideangle to provide a very large DOF, at f/2.0 all bets are off. And while kids play nicely at a distance, in the sun, the huge DOF covers the problem. But... and it's a big BUTT ;) here: <b>the oversight</b>.Meaning, with my Tokina 12-24 (almost always glued to 12mm), at f/4.0 I kinda need to push the ISO to more than reasonable, while being in the middle of a dance floor, for example. Action at one to two meters away, semi-dark... f/2.0 would be damn welcome to get at least 1/100s while still under ISO3200. And at f/2.0, short distance, you can bet your amateur photographer licence ;) that you NEED to be in focus. Wide open and zone focusing is just begging for the right moment to be thrown away, in the pile of junk "almost focused" photos.

Well, I've taken photos of kids only once, and that was for a friend.But I've been dozens of times in the middle of the dancers (paid photog), and that was since before anybody could get their paws on a full-frame under 5000$; hence, the Tokina 12-24 use.BTW, even if I have no use for video footage (or I can't be bothered by it; leaving it to the young guns), still I can see a flaw in the logic for a stabilization system for UWA: of course, it's... video. Even with a fisheye, you still see the small jerks ;)(and no, using a mFT or a Pentax with IBS for video isn't really a solution).Anybody trying to bash Nikon for puting AF on their 14-24? Or stabilization on their 16-35? Crickets? :)

Re: MF vs. AF in Samyang lenses. I see an opening for some tech-savvy, enterprising person or outfit to develop add-on chip adapters for Samyang lenses (in all their brand-name variations). Preferably, to develop chip adapters tailored to different mounts and camera brands.

However, I see a potential chicken/egg problem. That enterprising, tech-savvy person might well look at the market and say there's not enough volume to make doing that development and manufacturing work profitable. Ironically, if that person were to take the risk, Samyang lenses would probably sell in greater volume, thanks to the availability of the chip adapters.

Too bad an electronic chip is not included for m43 mount. MF I can deal with, but having to input the focal length every time you mount it is a pain.Also, they cheaped out a bit with the 6 aperture blades - it doesn't make the best sun stars.Samyang is making some really great stuff lately, but it seems like they just fall slightly short in some areas of design. Give me 7 aperture blades and a chip for m43 use and they'd likely have a runaway winner of a lens (assuming it optically performs). I know these things cost $$, but it can't cost that much to add a 7th aperture blade and install a chip for m43.

I think they are trying to avoid the stuff that's likely to cause problems. With a basic manual lens, the only thing you can get wrong is the infinity stop (and my 14mm Samyang goes way, way beyond infinity). When you add chips, AF, etc. and try to make these work with different camera brands, that's when the trouble starts.

The focus peaking works fine at 1.4, but I prefer to use the magnification function for portraiture. Problem is at 85mm 1.4, the depth of focus is so small if the subject or camera move even an inch it's out of focus.

Nice to see more mirrorless designs from Samyang. I would really like to see them make a 9 or 10mm f/2.8 design for m4/3. (Their announced 10mm f/2.8 doesn't count: it's designed for DSLRs and accordingly it's huge.)

it does look interesting, but I wonder how different it is optically to the Panasonic 14mm f2.5 with the x0.79 adapter? That outfit costs (new) in total something like US$480 and weighs totally 125g (about half). Of course if you already *have* the 14mm its even more attractive to get the GWC1 :-)

1) This isn't 'just' for m43's, which the 14mm is only compatible with.

2) The directly comparable lens in m43's is the Olympus 12mm f2 (funny that) which costs more than double this Samyang.

3) On an APS-C camera there has never been a similar alternative to this lens, it is very unique and quite remarkable that we are offered such a lens. M43's has no direct equivalent of an 18mm f2 lens.

Agreed, this seems most interesting to NX, E, X, EF-M cameras which use APS-C sensors.

If you have wide large aperture lenses like this, that are still relatively compact, I see less reason to get a full frame camera (wide large aperture is where it has a large advantage). This is going to give equivalent depth of field to your 14-24mm f/2.8 or 16-35mm f/2.8 at the same field of view.

I like Samyang optics but don't like missing the AF, although for this angle of view it is not relevant.

Anyways if you are considering buying a lens without AF (As I did) try first one of your lenses in MF mode at maximum aperture, go out and take many shots of subjects and conditions similar to the ones you intend to do with the lens you'd like to purchase. Then calculate the rate of "missed focus" and judge by yourself how the Samyang lens will behave in critical situations.

I was contemplating purchasing the Samyang 85mm f1.4 vs the Canon 85mm f1.8. I was very tempted because the good quality optics and the f1.4. I said to me that MF is possible at f1.4 and bla bla bla. Then to be objective I took my Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens and went out shooting portraits MF at f2.8. then went home and guess what, only 15% had acceptable focus.

So I bought the Canon 85mm f1.8.

Hope this helps anybody thinking of buying MF lenses, just because price. Subjects move and you too ;)

i agree for longer focal lengths, but their ultra wide offerings are fairly easy to focus, even without a splitscreen. the 8mm fisheye is almost impossible to miss, and the 14mm is almost as impossible to miss as the 8mm. granted one is a fisheye, which have notoriously deep dof, and the ultrawide which has slightly less dof than the fisheye.. not much though.

And also to be fair a Canon DSLR does not have great MF aids through the viewfinder and using the screen can be quite clunky. Mirrorless cameras (for which this was designed) have far better MF aids when using the VF.

Cool! I do not own a mirrorless system... yet. Fuji would be my choice if I bought today, and this lens would get serious consideration. AF would be nice, but is not necessary given the attractive price and fast aperture. I am glad this lens accepts filters (67mm). Perhaps Sigma will soon add to the available APS mirrorless lenses?

Samyang lenses are without any aperture control or EXIF information! Only for Nikon EXIF data and aperture control are offered. Without this a lens is quite useless as you are going to close the aperture actually before taking the picture, which leads to the fact, that the camera doesn't get the full light for metering and the viewer. If you are using an EVF you still have a viewable picture, but the focus peeking won't work as everything gets marked as sharp in the viewer: with closed aperture the field of acceptable sharpness is very widened, so the focus peeking will be fooled.If you are using an optical viewer you won't be able to set the correct focus as you're viewer is showing a very dark picture that seems to be sharper than it is: this is an effect of small aperture with the fresnell mate.As long as Samyang isn't producing lenses with chips and full aperture control they are no offer. Good glass alone would have been ok 50 years ago, but not in 21st century's photography.

If you're stopped down, getting the focus exactly right is not as important since DoF is so deep, especially on a wide-angle like this. It's a fine tradeoff to drop the electronics in exchange for a much lower price.

First: This wasn't about manual lenses like the ones from Zeiss eg. it was about _Samyang_ lenses. Check the difference. Samyang lens means:* No AF* No aperture control by the camera* No EXIF data* No compatibility with the camera electronics

Second:DoF isn't even compensating on the 14mm full frame for a bad focus point. I tried it on a A99 body and the outcome of these trials led to what I'm posting here.

I have been using the Samyang 24mm F1.4, 35mm F1.4 and 85mm F1.4 on my full frame VG900 without any problems . I guess some people just don't have a clue how to use MF lenses so they should stick with a fully automatic (AF, IS ) lens that does it all. I spent my whole life in the film days with a Pentax 6x7 and 4x5 cameras so complaints like this about MF lenses is just too funny.

This is perfect for focus peaking. I don't think you know what you are talking about. Closing down the aperture before the shot will give the camera a more accurate calculation of the scene. This lens will work just fine. You are correct about the not having all of the 'features' but this is why a person would buy this lens. Sometimes, you want to set the aperture manually and keep it there without the lens constantly resetting itself. When you really want portrait control, autofucus just gets in the way and focus peaking works very well nowdays.The lens will not be for everyone, but it certainly has it's place.

One of the most interesting lenses in history and all you can complain about is how it is MF... well done. for what it is worth with all your expertise, mirrorless (which is all this lens will work on) don't have optical viewfinders, so a big part of your argument is void.

Secondly, just because YOU struggled with MF lenses with manual aperture control does not mean everyone will have the same issue, I think there are enough people around that use adapted lenses that they don't need to listen to your 'warnings'.

I agree with Wolfgang about the focusing. Using focus peaking with wide lenses is not fun at all. Blinking pixels all over the viewfinder. Focus magnification works better but slows you down. I mostly focus my 14 mm Samyang using the focus scale and keep it around f8. Have made a custom Dof scale for it, works nice in most situations. I have no issues with metering.

I have a 8 mm fisheye on my NEX and I confirm : almost impossible to miss a focus. I am normally an AF addict and AF speed and accuracy is a major issue to me. But with such wide angles, just set the lens in the morning, and you are OK for the remaining of the day. And of course focus peaking is useless because everything is white or red : everything is simply always focused. Imo, AF is really a waste of money / reliabliity/ size / weight for such focal lengths.

But I have to admit that empty EXITS are more frustrating. Now I have only the 8 mm and I can recognise photos by empty EXITS, but when I'll get the 16 mm as well...

I shoot a lot of manual focus landscape pictures with lens adapters, in fact, I shoot most of my AF lens in manual focus when shooting landscape, so far the lack of in camera aperture control and exif has not been an issue for me, I shoot Nikon 14-24 on Canon 1DS3 regularly, I shoot all my Zeiss ZF.2 lenses on both D800E and 1DS3 & NEX7 with adapter all the time, actually I shoot all my DSLR lens on NEX7 including the Samyang, 14mm, 24mm.....love the manual aperture control ring, stop down metering has been working GREAT for me for all these years, Focus Peaking works fine with any manual lens with adapter, so for me, the MF Zeiss, Samyang with or without chips or any good optic with appropriate adapter is still good enough not only 50 years ago but also good enough at 2014, and many years ahead. Actually I am getting the new Zeiss 135 ZF.2 and will be using it on both the D800E and 1DS3 without in camera aperture control and full EXIF, and I won't afraid to us it on the A7R either.

Great, but it is just one more Samyang announcement. We already have two unrealized Samyang announcements of one lens: 2.8/10mm. It was firs announced at the las Photokina, and again at the end of 2013. With both releasing dates way behind us.

Is this lens in addition to, or instead of, the 10mm F2.8 which was announced some time ago? To my knowledge that lens can still not actually be found, and nobody has seen one, much less tested or reviewed it.

We do love announcements Samyang, but we love actual availability of lenses even more! =)

The 10mm F2.8 was only officially announced in December, but Samyang has clearly had more problems that usual with the design, after first showing it at Photokina 2012. More generally, Samyang has delivered all the lenses it's promised in pretty good time.

This new 12mm F2 for mirrorless is clearly a very different lens to a 10mm F2.8 for APS-C SLRs, and crucially a rather less ambitious project.

Oly 12/2 is more expensive ($800 MSRP vs $400 for Samyang, although from time to time you can buy it with a camera for $600, including now), but it is also much smaller, lighter, has autofocus and electronics for automatic in-camera corrections of distortion, vignetting and on the latest cameras also CA).If it were available for $600 without a camera, this Samyang would not have a chance... Well, on ebay used Oly 12mm go for as low as $467. This Samyand does not have chance. Maybe for poorer systems, but not for m43.

For little extra cost and effort, Samyang will sell many more lenses than if they didn't release it for the m43 mount. Taken together, Olympus and Panasonic have a larger market share in mirrorless than even Sony, so there's a large potential market.

Developing a lens specifically for m43 would have cost them much more, so from the manufacturer's point of view, it's understandable.